


The Flower and the Crystal Bear

by shirokuro_sumi



Category: Mabinogi (Video Game)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:50:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirokuro_sumi/pseuds/shirokuro_sumi
Summary: A #lore fic based on the question "just how do Avalon animals drop weapons". (Spoiler alert: there is no poop involved)





	The Flower and the Crystal Bear

They say that Berg Mesa looks as rough as it does to represent the challenge of keeping faith. And yeah, it’s a pretty unpleasant place to be in, what with the high winds and sparse landscape and crystal wyverns trying to chew your head off. That, I’m not denying.

It’s just…

Look, I just want to say, there’s worse ways to test one’s faith.

“Damn you to Tech Duinn,” I swear between gritted teeth. The branch in my hand trembles, but holds fast to the tree as I clumsily pull myself up. Iridescent azure leaves snag my clothes, my hair and my collection bag. Some even fall in my face as I look up about twenty meters or so, to a cut in the cliff face beside above-mentioned tree.

There is a faint pink glow there on that rock shelf, and I throw a middle finger in its general direction. 

The local texts call it “Flower of Faith’s Guardian”, or “faithbloom” for short. A super-rare alpine flower native only to Avalon, it is the color of Yggdrasil and makes small shield-shaped blossoms that emit light like the Great Tree. But while Yggdrasil cuttings are too potent (i.e. uh, explosive) to be used as a medicinal ingredient, a brew of faithbloom can supposedly bring folks back from the brink of death. 

If harvesting it doesn’t put _me_ on the brink of death, anyway. 

I feel for breaks in the mountain, and fit my fingers in. My toes complain as I crack-climb the last section, wishing for the umpteenth time that Aton Cimeni let people fly around here. It looked easy enough to get to when I first spotted the faithbloom from a mountain alongside - just go up a ravine, cross over a few trees, then a spot of rock climbing up to the legendary flower. A few hours of exertion on a pleasant summer day.

What I didn’t see was that the ravine was really unstable and the trees grew up an extremely narrow ridge of rock. So instead of 5% rock climbing it turned out to be more like 85%, and 100% of it was terrible.

“And then…” I mutter, eyeing the growing bank of clouds on the horizon. I’d spotted the thunderstorm earlier this morning, and put it at about half a day away. Which was way more time than I’d thought I needed for this maybe-3-hour adventure.

Now it looks like it’d be upon me in an hour, and here I am still covered in foliage and clinging precariously to tiny cracks in slick granite. Surrounded by trees and mountains, like people tell you not to be in a thunderstorm because, well, zap zap.

Immortal, yes. Lightning rod, preferably not.

A test of faith, indeed.

I scrabble up the last five feet and finally, finally behold the faithbloom on its hellish shelf of stone. Amongst sparse-looking leaves, it is a single stalk of vivid color, pulsing with divine light. Just looking at it makes me feel better… until I remember where I am, anyway.

Carefully taking only the flowers, I stash them away before reaching for an iron bolt. I’d also brought rope, so after I drive said bolt into the rock I’d be able to make this climb a lot quicker. And a lot safer, which is honestly a real relie―

_Crack-BOOOOM._

.

.

.

...

...O-

Ouch.

It wasn’t like when I’d leap off my Tuan from fifty meters up. Neither was it like being thrown by a rampaging Girgashiy, or being spammed by some enemy’s chain-casted Thunder. 

It was like all three at once with three times the pain, and as I lay on my still-smoking back in some clearing below the cliff, I’m pleasantly surprised that I don’t see Nao coming to visit. 

“Ow,” I wince, struggling to sit up. “B… by the gods, that was a real―”

Prickles, suddenly.

Like being stared at by a monster, just before some cliché chase through some cliché godforsaken forest.

“...Oh god.”

The crystal bear is huge. Bearing an ‘Ancient’ title and an extra hundred kilograms, its gem-like spikes are nearly as tall and thick as I am. Its great, dark-furred head dwarfs mine; its eyes are nearly as big as my fist - and glaring at me with the same animosity a Milletian would have for brown foxes.

It is also very clearly dying.

Its surroundings tell the story - snapped branches above it, upset piles of rock around. Broken crystal scattered here and there. Deep cuts in its fur, matted with blood. I could almost see it now: some Milletian with a long blade hacking and slashing at it in a ridge above. Having gotten more than they bargained for, they are too weak to beat it but strong enough to drive it closer and closer to the mountain’s edge, before a single misstep, a pull of gravity, and—

That it didn’t immediately charge me like a regular crystal bear is proof enough of its helplessness. Looking at its health bar, I contemplate putting it out of its misery. 

Well, I’d be doing more than contemplating… if I hadn’t just been struck by lightning and fallen some forty to fifty feet onto rocky forest floor. Screw you too, Manannan mac Lir.

_Boom._

“Oh, great,” I grumble, as the blue sky turns gray. 

Somehow I manage to stumble into the shelter of nearby trees. The bear, just as I’d thought, is too weak to follow. And as the air fills with the sound of rain it just lays there, getting drenched, red streaks running off its fur and pooling beneath its massive body.

I’d hidden myself so that it can’t stare at me anymore, but somehow I still feel like it’s totally judging me.

Even worse, I’m totally starting to judge myself.

“…”

…I really should just finish the poor thing off. 

But my hands are shaky as they grip my swords, and I find myself increasingly not wanting to do it. The old guardians of Avalon, driven mad by unholy light… There’s just something about that kind of fate that makes me feel really, really sad. To sleep, and wake a common monster. Locked in aggression, attacking the innocent. 

Freedom only by death.

Water runs down my face, and as I wipe it away I pretend it’s just rain.

Still, everything is slightly blurry as I retrieve the slightly-crushed faithbloom, along with a few other medicinals. Discounting the terribly rare main ingredient, the old books from Avalon say that its preparation is like that of any basic potion. It’s really only different from, say, a HP or MP potion in that it requires an infusion of divine light instead of mana.

The bits and liquids slosh around in the bottle very unassumingly as I focus, and emit a small burst of will. A small burst of faith. 

The first spark surprises me, and I flashback to a Very Bad Moment of violent flames and glass shards. But where the Yggdrasil potion had exploded, the little bottle in my hand is suddenly, simply, serenely glowing - like a miniature sunrise, if sunrise were to throw off fragments that twinkle pink and gold and white. 

It’s really… quite beautiful.

Like a promise of coming light.

As I approach the crystal bear, its wounds are more evident, more terrible to behold. Injuries old and new are cut into the thick fur, the hairs of which are floating on the red-tinged puddles. It doesn’t move as I get within eyesight, and I wonder if I’m too late - before it turns and stares back at me. At that point I’m so close that I see the madness in its eyes and freeze out of habit… but its body is too beyond use to do anything. 

I empty the potion into its mouth. And as the last drop falls, it occurs to me that all I could be doing is triggering my own death flag. 

I don’t know why exactly I brush it off, but I do.

Mostly.

So I still yelp like an idiot when the crystal bear suddenly _roars_, its jaws missing my face by inches, sparks of sunrise spiraling like fire over its body. So many they seem random - but no, each is just taking the shape of the cut it is sealing up. The sheer amount of them simultaneously scares and worries me as they wink out one by one, leaving behind damp but healthy fur, firm curves of muscle, a back studded with a full crest of golden crystals. 

My breath catches in my throat as it slowly stands up, rain coursing down its gigantic body. Did I mention it’s gigantic? Never mind how large it looked while emancipated and lying down, this… this is… 

_Why?_

A sudden voice out of nowhere. “Why what?” I squeak, wondering if I should run as the bear opens its giant, fist-sized eyes.

_Why did you waste the faithbloom on me?_

I stop, realization hitting me like a thunder— Well, okay, actually nothing like a real thunderclap, but still. “You… you can talk?”

_Answer, you who carries light within. _

“B-because I wanted to?”

The bear grunts unsatisfactorily, and I notice that it wasn’t ‘speaking’, per se. Not with sounds.

_I wanted to kill you,_ it thinks to me. _You knew that, and yet…_

“No, you didn’t,” I return. “Otherwise I’d be a smear of blood in a puddle right now.”

A look of reproach. _You foolish, naive child._

“Yeah, I know.”

_I did not deserve your pity._

“Kind of late to say so.”

_Even if it were corruption that clouded my thoughts, it is no excuse._

“You…”

_I brought harm to those I should have protected,_ it thinks bitterly. _I succumbed to the fear, the rage, the—_

“Even so, you didn’t deserve it!”

Its thoughts are cut off as I drop to my knees and hug it. We’re both soaking wet and it’s sort of uncomfortable with this mix of size and position, to be honest, but I still wanted to. I felt like I needed to - and indeed, its eyes widen in surprise as I press my cheek against its cheek, my arms against its great shoulders. “You didn’t deserve it,” I cry again. “Please, don’t be like that. It wasn’t your fault.”

_Even if it was not, I still did what I did._

I grip its fur tighter, water rolling down my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. “That’s not fair to you.”

_It is not a fair world._

“I don’t care. I want it to be. I will fight to make it fair.”

A brief silence but for the ongoing rain, then: _That kindness will be the end of you._

“Yeah, I know; I already got stabbed for it, actually.”

_…But there is a place for such kindness in this world._

The bear steps back out of my arms, and looks me straight in the eye. _I am a servant of Aton Cimeni,_ it thinks to me, as if with a faint smile. _And I have judged you worthy._

“Worthy? Worthy of what?” I ask.

I let it lower its great head to me, its forehead warm and soft as it presses up against mine. 

Flashes, suddenly. Of a woman who bore shields on her chest, and a revolver in each hand. Her faith, her relentless devotion; shards of a lost era flying by like the endless stream of bullets she’d unleashed upon her enemies. War and peace, quiet and havoc. Gains and losses. So many losses. 

And then, too soon, she also―

The bear pulls away before I could see, its eyes glittering.

_Normally I would cede to your strength, but this time I cede to your heart. _

__

__

_I may not have much, but I hope you find a use for it._

Something falls on the ground between us with a soft thump. But I don’t dare waste the time to look at what it is, for the being before me is already halfway to completely transparent. Disappearing bit by bit into sky.

_The cycle calls. For allowing my heart to answer, I thank you with my entire being._

In one moment: a shadow of a smile, basked in the glow of divine light.

In the next: just a battered set of ancient guns.

The sound of rain is louder than her voice, as it echoes before fading completely: 

_Take care, child of the stars. May the gods bless you for protecting what we could not._


End file.
